Tuesday, August 10, 2004

As mentioned yesterday, I decided to go through my TiVo Season Passes (the TiVo tool that lets you set up recurring recording of shows) and give a little bit of detail as to why I TiVo the show or use it as a vehicle to rip another show.

Basically, I just want to write about TV for a bit, and this is a good opportunity, since it's just before new shows start up and I have to figure out what new shows are worth watching.

Alright, here are the "rules" of my list:
1) There is nothing wrong with TV. People who say that they don't watch TV or that TV is worthless are douchebags (that's the word of the week). There are any number of TV shows that are as well-written, performed, and produced as great movies or books. It's just another storytelling medium. I will punch in the groin or boob anyone who tells me that watching TV is a waste.

2) TiVo Season Passes needed to be ordered in priority order. Thus, shows that repeat a lot or shows that I care less about are down the bottom. However, there are a number of shows in the middle of the list that I like more than shows above them, but they better shows are on more often, so I can catch multiple shows by adjusting their relative priority so that the crappier show is higher in the list.

34. Queer Eye for the Straight GuyQueer Eye. A male makeover-type show that caught people off guard by being funnier than it had any right to be. It was great.

Then, after about 3 episodes, you realize the same damn thing happens every week. Seriously, there's never any drama. They never makeover a homophobe or a guy who's completely disgusting and impossible to repair.

Yet, I still find myself compelled to watch the show. Mostly for tips from the grooming guy, since I'm completely lost when it comes to male grooming. I know about brushing my teeth and shaving on occasion. That's about it.

Anyway, QEFTSG is a show built for TiVo. My TiVo is setup to do the 30-second skip thing. So I basically skip through the show until I find something interesting, stop for a minute, then blow through another 1o minutes of repetitive crap. I can finish the show in about 6 or 7 minutes, which is about all the show is tolerable for these days. Hence it's location at the very bottom of my Season Pass list.

33. MI-5A repackaged British spy show originally titled Spooks, MI-5 is what 24 wishes it could be. Compelling spy action, good interpersonal stories, done by the Brits, so it's got a modicum of rationality.

I'm sure I'll rant on 24 later. That show sucks balls. The fact that it's "critically acclaimed" is the biggest travesty since someone decided Will & Grace deserved a Thursday night NBC slot while better shows (like Newsradio) get shuffled off to die on Tuesday.

32. The 4400A new USA sci-fi show about what would happen if 4400 abductees from the past 75 years or so are brought back to modern day and dropped off in the same place (the Pacific Northwest). The pilot was pretty compelling sci-fi, but it became less X-Files/Close Encounters and more Roswell as the mini-series has gone on. Not that there's anything wrong with that -- I dug Roswell, but more so in the first season and a half, before it became more teen soap opera than sci-fi. The middle 3 episodes were very Roswell at the end of season 2 -- good TV, but more soap than sci-fi. Thankfully, the finale definitely came back and turned the show on its head a little bit, which was great to see.

I'm guessing USA will pick this up and give it a full run. I'll probably tune in to check out where they go with it.

31. World Series of PokerI like poker. It's fun to watch the WSOP. It's not great TV in most cases, and, lately, if ESPN was a person, they'd be a douchebag, but it's worthwhile just to see some decent poker on TV.

30. Celebrity Poker ShowdownFor the most part, a more entertaining poker show than the World Poker Tour purely because the play is less predictable and they usually get on some people that I find entertaining (David Cross, Seth Meyers, Amy Poehler). Dave Foley's a better host than Vince Van Patton, but he deserves better than this.

29. World Poker TourI like poker. It's fun to watch the WPT. It's not great TV in most cases, and Vince Van Patton is a douchebag, but it's worthwhile just to see some decent poker on TV.